The Journey
by Minxer
Summary: Taliyah is searching for a mentor to teach her how to control her powers - but unexpected things happen on the way. Will she find her master and will she find her way back home?
1. Prequel

"And you're sure you heard that?" a voice in the shadows said.

"Yes. Even though he was drunk, you could clearly hear the fear in his voice. There's no way he could have imagined that." a rather young man spoke. He had a long nose, which gave him a very funny appearance. He was quite tall, and if you didn't consider his nose, he looked quite handsome. He also had a serious look on his face, as if to deny any possibility of it to be a joke.

"Good. You'll recieve your payment as soon as you bring her here, alive. I'll be waiting here every night. Dismissed" the voice wasn't loud, but it was strong. You certainly didn't want to anger that man.

"Sir." the young man turned and walked towards the entrance, trying to look calm. He couldn't hide it very well though. That guy really creeped him out.

Just as he reached the door, the man called: "Clarke."

"Sir?"

"Try not to scare her: It will make everything much harder."

"Yes sir." Clarke said before exiting the room. He walked out of the bar before sighing to himself. The last few words had made the job a lot less fun. Normally he wouldn't have cared about what he old, grumpy man said but this time he had sounded a lot more commanding and serious about the job. There was something weird about the old man, nearly as if he had heard about that rumor before. Sometimes he wondered if the man had a moment in his life that wasn't a secret. Damn it, he knew the old man since three years already and he still didn't know his name.

He quickly snapped to attention as he heard two horses approaching behind him. After jumping to the side to avoid being overrun he sank into his thoughts again.

Three years ago he had met the old man for the first time. He had walked into the bar called 'the brown bear', looking just for a drink. He had nearly no money back then and was desperatly searching for a job. The bartender had noticed his lack of resources and told him to go through the room on the far end of the bar. Since he really was desperate then, so he obeyed and walked through the door. There, the 'old man' was sitting in his chair, and for the next three years, he had given Clarke 'sidejobs' as the old man called them.

Three years later, Clarke didn't need the money from those sidejobs anymore. But if it was easy to do and didn't take more than two days to complete, he did it, since the additional money was always welcome.

He had arrived at a bar which he didn't know the name of. He entered and started chatting with the drunk people, mostly soldiers, and tried to find any information about the girl that could slide on rocks. He got lucky. A man who had definetly had had a few beer to much, yelled through the bar: "Oi, yea mate. How many times do I have to tell you? She had rocks forming under her!". There were people giggling here and there, as he continued: "Believe me or not, I don't doubt what I saw!"

"Yeah, until tomorrow morning" a voice said. The bar filled with laughter. Clarke went to the drunken soldier and offered him a drink.

"Where did you find her?" Clarke asked.

"Drinking water from the fountain outside of the city."

"What fountain? I haven't seen any fountains around here."

"There is one, if you take the west exit and continue on the road. It's built out of stone entirely."

Burying his thoughts into his general knowledge of Noxus, he shouted "There is no fountain outside the city. I doubt that there is even a fountain inside Noxus!" ' _the government is too lazy and too egoistic to build fountains for the public'_ Clarke thought, frightened about what would happen if he said that aloud. Clrake was now seriously thinking that this man may be too drunk to give him any valuable information. "Can you show me that fountain?"

"How much do I get?"

"Money is not a problem" Clarke said and showed him a little pouch full with coins. The drunken man snapped and suddently, all the signs of him being drunken were gone. In a much more serious tone, he said: "Come on, lets go"

So Clarke followed him outside the city. It went half an hour, and after arriving, he realized that it really was a fountain. But it was different. The fountain looked as if it was one with the stonewall behind it, and ther water seemed to come from a natural source due to the stream of water being irregular and even interrupted sometimes.

"Quite a weird appearance, right?" His 'guide' said and held a hand out which clearly asked for the money. He took a few coins out and put them in his hand.

"A pleasure doing business with you. If you need anything else, I'll be at the bar." The guide said and walked away. Minutes later, Clarke dissapeared too, a pensative look on his face.

A woman stepped out of the bush near the fountain. "Perfect" she muttered, her words piercing through the silence of the night. "The general will be pleased" she added as she started to walk down the road, her steps not doing even the slightest sound.


	2. Memories

Taliyah walked on the small road, stopping by a sign to read it. It said: ' _Noxus territory'._ She jumped a bit in excitement and anticipation. Living her whole life in the Shurima desert, as a part of her tribe, she wasn't familiar with big cities. The biggest one she ever saw was the sunken city of Shurima. There were a few old tribes that still prayed to the dead gods and waited for a new one to arise and rebuild the mythical city, but Taliyah had always ignored them. The city broke apart before her grandparents were even born, and the 'gods' could have retaken them a long time ago. As she heard from the eldest of her tribe, the only reason why Shurima got so prosperous was because half of it's population were slaves. So if the gods returned, they would need to make new slaves. And of course, the first slaves would be the people that stopped believing in them, so her tribe would be in a very bad position.

* * *

At a point in time, the people of her tribe stopped believing in Shuriman gods and started praying to the great Stoneweaver. The legend of the great Stoneweaver said that one day, when the gods return, a stoneweaver will be born. That said child would have the power to control everything that was made of stone. When the child had grown, it would go on and defeat Azir, the ruler of Shurima.

There had already been a Stoneweaver when Azir had woken up last time. But the Stoneweaver failed and Azir ruled over Shurima a painful long time before he was defeated by something nobody knew what it was.

Like the gods, the Stoneweaver's were still real, even though nobody had seen one in ages. Well, until now. She had been raised to look up to the weavers, and seek their assistance at difficult times. But Taliyah wasn't raised to be a stoneweaver herself. At the age of 11, when she first discovered her powers, she decided to keep it a secret until she was in full control of her powers. But as much as she tried, she never could.

After 7 years, the only thing Taliyah could willingly do was take a tiny pebble and size it up to a stone. Everything else came unpredictably. So it was at the age of 18 that Taliyah decided to show her powers to her tribe. At the weekly meeting, she said that she had something to say. So everybody sat down and listened, while she stood up and said: "Watch." She took a small pebble from the floor and concentrated. She imagined how that pebble grew and changed its form to a cube. At the same time, the pebble started to change excactly the way she imagined. As she finished transforming the small stone, she stood there, panting from exhaustion.

After a long way standing there, her father stood and looked her in the eye. "Taliy.." He couldn't finish before she pushed him away, surely saving his life as a huge rock landed on the position he was standing on with a great ' **whoomp'.** The members of the tribe shot around in panic, trying to avoid death from the sudden rain of rocks and pebbles falling from above. Taliyah quickly tried to change the shapes of the falling rocks to pebbles, but she didn't have the strength. In a desperate move to try and save the lives of her people, she wanted to create something that would hold of the stones, but the moment she started thinking about it everything went black.

When she woke up again, she could see that most of the tents got absolutely destroyed and their remaining pieces were lying around on the desert. As Taliyah stood up she realized she was untouched, no bruise, no cuts, nothing. Her gaze wandered over the are where all the stones had fallen. As Taliyah walked around, she saw that not only rocks had fallen, but some people from her tribe had fallen too. Tears started to rise as she saw her parents holding holding hands while they were lying unconcious on the sand, and the tears really began to flow as she saw a childhood friend who was dead on the ground, having a very sharp stone piercing his body about where his heart is.

Tears started to drop as Taliyah realized that this was all her fault. While she had transformed that pebble she had unwillingly changed something in the mountain behind them, which led to the mountain collapsing on top of them. She started to run away, her eyes now acting like tiny waterfalls. She swore to herself to never use her powers again until she had found a master to teach her. After all, she may have wiped out her tribe just by making a silly mistake which happened because she couldn't control her power.

Running away was the easy part though. She had nothing to eat or drink and no idea where she was going. For two months, Taliyah fled from the disaster and just went north, because the only thing she had to help her find her way through the desert was the compass her father had given her for her 16. birthday. She went north and started to eat everything she could find. A small rat, a lizard, rotten plants and so forth. Drinking wasn't a problem since the cactuses which you could find everywhere had some juice inside. She could slice the cactus with a sharp stone and drink from it.

But food wasn't the only problem. Even though her body had weakened from the food she was eating, the mental toll was way bigger. In that journey she had nearly killed herself several times. The thought that she had maybe killed her whole tribe made her sick, mad at her power and mad at the great stoneweaver who had chosen her over everybody else.

* * *

She had cried so many times about that on her journey, she was just about to go mad. Luckily, as she walked up a hill, she saw a huge city. Much bigger than she had expected and also much more impressive than she had expected. Most of the buildings were black, with a few redish ones. The city pretty sure had a sinister look, but Taliyah didn't care. Also, the more you looked at it, the more you got used to it. If you didn't consider the colors, Noxus would look quite impressive and beautiful. But the size of the city was still undeniably enormous. She just stood atop the hill for at least 10 minutes and stared in awe at the massive buildings beneath her.

 _So this is Noxus._


	3. Noxus

Taliyah started walking downhill calmly, looking as if she was a teenage girl that had lived her whole life in Noxus. Or at least that's what she thought. In reality she was jumping around like an excited bunny and nearly ran down the hill. The two guards noticed her and muttered something about "the damned tourists" and that they "don't belong here". As Taliyah aproached the guards, one of them took her to the side.

"Hello, little girl. What do you want in Noxus? This is not a place for weaklings like you." The guard said. Taliyah unwillingly started to think back at her painful memories and nearly started to cry again. The guard noticed and said:

"Did I hit a wound spot? I'm not really sorry, youngn'. In Noxus, only the strong survive. Unless you tell me now what you want in here, I'm not gonna let you in."

"I.. I want a place to stay for the night" Taliyah said. Her voice sounded rusty, as if she didn't use it in months. She realized that that was excactly the case and continued on: "I'm not planning to stay here for long".

"Hmm, alright, enter. Just keep in mind what I said and don't say that you weren't warned when you get into trouble." The guard said and walked back to the gates. He let her pass through and just as she walked inside, a wall of noise and odors hit her. Noxus was loud. Very loud. You could hear the neighbors arguing because of a cat, a shop owner was shouting at a couple of kids who, apparently, had stolen some bread and you could hear several kids crying, without anybody really caring for them. _Where are their mothers?_ Taliyah thought as she painfully watched one of the kids getting beaten by a dozen of drunk-looking men.

Just as Taliyah wanted to intervene, she realized that she really couldn't take on these men on her own, even in a good state. While thinking, her stomach made a loud _GRRRRRRT_ sound that was so loud that everyone in ten kilometers must have heard it. In fact, a few people turned around and stared at her with weird looks on their faces. She blushed deeply and made sure to get out of there quickly.

As she walked away, her stomach made another _grrt_ sound, but this time less noisy. She realized that she was far away from what she called a "good state", so she went off and started to search for a place to eat.

After walking around Noxus a bit, she felt that she had to change her question. There were several places to eat. The question was: where can I eat without probably getting harassed by drunk men? As she walked further around in Noxus, she found a tavern which wasn't full with shouting people. So she entered.

The tavern wasn't crowded enough to be full, but it had quite a few people inside. Even though most of the visitors were men, Taliyah could see a woman here and there. She stood in the entrance for a while to soak up all the smells and feelings flying in the air. The tavern had quite the positive atmosphere unlike any part of Noxus she had visited already. No fights, no arguments, and, the most important thing, there were places to sit where you probably wouldn't get bothered.

As she took a few steps inside, she stopped again. He had never been in a tavern and she was quite unsure of what to do now. Suddently, the barkeeper shouted: "Choose your place to sit, a waiter will come soon". After saying that, he returned to washing glasses while conversing with a man who was clearly overweight. Taliyah chose a small table in the corner which was meant for two and sat down. Soon enough, a small girl who wasn't more than 2-4 years older than herself came and asked her what she wanted to eat. Dazzled, she asked for the first best thing the girl listed and continued waiting.

After a while, Taliyah saw the waiter-girl again and realized that she probably was the barkeeper's daughter. She came with a plate with some meat and salad. She walked to the table, placed down the food and asked something that Taliyah didn't quite catch because she was fully concentrated on the food. Taliyah grumbled a yes to the girl, hoping that the answer would satisfy her and started eating the salad. Apparently, a yes was enough, and the girl went back to the kitchen. After a while, she came back with a meal on her own and sat to the table with Taliyah. Probably the girl had asked if she may sit and eat with her.

"So, your name is..?"

"Taliyah"

"Alright, Taliyah. Why are you so sad?"

Taliyah straightened herself and said: "I'm not."

The girl chuckled and replied: "You are."

"I'm not."

"You are."

..

..

"Is it that obvious?"

Now the girl started laughing: "I'm surprised nobody pointed that out before". But after a while, the happiness on her face vanished and she added:"No, actually, I'm not. Nobody cares about other people in this city."

After a while of silence, Taliyah asked: "But why?"

The girl sighed and put down her silverware: "Noxus is a city with one rule: only the strong survive. If you aren't strong, you'll end up like the beggars in the dark alleys. And since the drive for being strong and powerful is the only emotion that noxian people should have, showing compassion or just caring about other people is also taken as a sign for weakness."

"You can't even care for, let's say, your family?"

"Now that's kinda different. I think helping your family is alright, as long as he or she is not entirely dependant on it and as long as you keep it silent."

Both girls said nothing for a while and concentrated on eating. After a few moments, to break the awkward silence, Taliyah asked the girl for her name.

"Oh, didn't I introduce myself? I'm so sorry! My name is Elvira and I'm the daugther of the owner here." Elvira said and pointed to a vague direction of the bar.

"My story is not very interesting though. I was born on a farm on the outskirts of Noxus. My family moved to Noxus when I was four. From then on, I live here with my parents and two brothers and help in this bar. What about you?"

"Um, I'm from a tribe in the shuriman desert. That's it. Basically."

Elvira clearly didn't believe her. But she didn't dig deeper. They continued eating. Just as Taliyah finished, shouting voices rose from the bar. The owner and the fat man started arguing. Taliyah turned and asked Elvira: "Why are they arguing?"

"I think the other man doesn't have enough money to pay for the sheer countless beers he had and now my father has to get him to wash dishes or something"

"Money? What's that?" Taliyah asked.

Elvira's face grew pale white.


	4. Visitor

Taliyah stood in a kitchen, with a towel in her hand. "And what now?" She asked.

"You take all the dishes I wash and dry them" A similar-aged girl responded.

"Where do I put them after drying?" Silence. "Elvira?"

"Ah yes, sorry. Just place them all on that table here and we'll sort them afterwards." Elvira pointed to a rather small kitchen table which was made out of stone. Taliyah could feel the stone vibrating a tiny bit through her presence and worried if she could leave the dishes there without any incidents. In the meanwhile, Elvira had already started washing, and when she didn't feel anyone taking the wet silverware she was holding out of her hand, she asked: "Taliyah"

"Oh yes, sorry. I'm here" Taliyah answered and took the silverware to dry it.

They worked for one hour before going to sleep. Taliyah had been given a room right next to Elvira's. Last night, Elvira's father had come to the table where the two girls were sitting after dealing with the other man who didn't have money. The barkeeper, who went by the name Jatt, had agreed to letting Taliyah sleep and eat here after Taliyah told them both a simplified version of her Journey. Of course, she had to work here too, but Taliyah didn't mind. She didn't have anywhere else to go.

* * *

"Good morning, Tali..." Elvira said. "Wake up!"

"Mmh..?" Needless to say, Taliyah wasn't very awake.

"Taaliiyaaah..."

"Mmmmh... Yes?"

"Get up! I got a free day from my father to show you around here!"

"Alright... Give me a sec." Taliyah slowly sat up from her lying position and murmured: "But I'm still tired..."

"Come on! I'll get some money from my dad to buy you some decent clothes. At least look awake when I come back!"

Taliyah slowly stood up, wincing as her arm started to sting. She had apparently slept on it. "Dang.." She said and started rubbing it. Her mind switched to her clothes and, wanting to find out how she looked, she started searching for a mirror. She found one and realized that Elviras idea to get her some clothes wasn't such a bad one. Her shirt and pants that were white once turned into a desert-ish yellow. Taliyah sighed and turned around as she heard someone coming up the stairs.

"Taliyah?" She heard Elviras voice calling out her name. "I got some money! Let's go!"

Taliyah genuinely wondered how that girl could be so cheerful that early in the morning. She even managed to get Taliyah kind of presentable in a few minutes time. They left after promising Jatt to be back in a reasonable amount of time.

They went off north, passing by a few bars, but nothing really interesting.

"Where are we going?" Taliyah asked.

"We're going to get you some clothes."

"But where?"

"You'll see in a moment."

Taliyah continued asking, but got no real answer. The two girls started talking about the way Taliyah should behave in Noxus, or, as Elvira said: "How you can get killed here."

Taliyah realized that in Noxus, getting killed was way easier than staying alive. Elvira had been talking for 10 minutes straight about what you shouldn't do in Noxus, starting with being weak to farting in front of the wrong person. After a while, the two girls got to a - for noxian standards - beautiful plaza.

Taliyah stood there, astonished by the sudden beauty in this dark city. The shops were colorful and the people were cheerful and everything was moving and there were magicians doing tricks and you could smell delicious food an-

"Taliyah! For how long do you want to keep standing there?" Elvira laughed.

"Eehm, sorry! It's just so big and happy!"

Ignoring the probably unintended pun Taliyah had said, Elvira chuckled and said: "I know. This is the marketplace where we have to get some food for dad and then we can go and get you some clothes over there" she pointed in a general north direction.

After a while, Taliyah and her friend were loaded with food, and realized that they couldn't go buy any clothes while holding a mountain of food each.

"Elvira?"

"Yes?"

"How about we take the food to Jatt and then go buy clothes?"

"Good idea"

They went home and put the food onto the kitchen. But they didn't leave immediatly. The two girls had spent so much time buying food that it had gotten lunchtime, so they stayed for lunch. After lunch, they had to wash dishes again, and after the dishes they finally left for the clothes.

There weren't as many people in the marketplace then in the morning, but the 'shopping center' as Elvira called it had a lot more people. They still went into a couple of stores, and after a bit of searching, they found some black pants and a yellow-beige-ish shirt. Elvira didn't want to buy it, but Taliyah insisted on it because it reminded her of the desert.

Elvira wanted to search for a lot more, but after a certain comment from Taliyah("Why does the color matter?") she realized she wasn't much the shopping type, so they left the shop and started walking around. Elvira wanted to show Taliyah the city a bit, so they started walking around. As they left the plaza, they started walking to the 'arena', as Elvira said.

"What's the arena?" Taliyah asked.

"You'll see." Was the only answer she got.

"You like keeping secrets, don't you?"

"You'll find out" Elvira said and bursted out in laughter as Taliyah gave her a friendly punch to her back.

"Come on"

"Alright" Elvira said and chuckled "The arena is..."

"..."

"..."

"An arena?" she finished.

"Now that is very helpful, Elvira..." Taliyah sighed, bringing a smile to Elvira's face.

"How should I put it... It's a place where gladiators fight."

"What is a gladiator?"

"Goodness... Look, I'm not good at describing things. How about you wait for two minutes until we're there?"

"Whatever" Taliyah grumbled.

Suddently, a cat walked through her legs and made her fall to the ground. She hit her nose so hard it started bleeding, and she could hear Elvira calling out for her: "Taliyah?! Are you all right?" Her voice was high-pitched and worrysome. Then she felt a hand on her back.

"She's gonna be alright." A deep, male voice said. "Come on, take her to my house."

Taliyah managed to stand up with help from Elvira and the started walking after the man. Elvira gave her an insecure, but also a worrying look. You could see from her face that she would rather not go to that man's house. Taliyah just managed to say: "It's going to be alright" before she had to hold her nose again so it didn't bleed.

They arrived at a building which was rather big to be a house. When they entered, Taliyah and Elvira were relieved. This building was not a house, but a surgery. They walked past by a few empty rooms before arriving at one which had the imprint 'room 08' on the door. Apparently, it was a treatment room. The unknown man led them inside and told Taliyah to lie down on a weird bed. He left the room and came back in an instant with some weird tools. For Taliyah, everything was weird here, specially because the room was neat and clean, something she had not seen in this Noxus.

"Alright. Let me check your nose." The man said and started inspecting her nose. After a while, he stood up from his sitting position and said "Good. I'm glad you proved my assumptions wrong by not breaking your nose. Just make sure you don't fall on your nose again." He led the two girls out and shook hands with Elvira. Taliyah was too busy holding her nose.

"Don't we have to pay you?"

"Take this as a gift" the man said and smiled. "Goodbye"

"Goodbye, mister ..?"

"Durand. Clarke Durand."


	5. Trapped

"How many times do you want to say that?" Taliyah asked.

"But he really was weird, you know, that doesn't happen here.." Was the quick answer from Elvira.

"Why do you have a problem when people are nice?"

"You could get killed for that!" Elvira shouted. "The whole city of Noxus has turned friendly since you arrived."

"And that wasn't like that before?"

"No! If you fall and your nose bleeds, you're lucky if nobody comes and starts to kick you!"

"Maybe everybody changed but you didn't realize? Come on, calm down." Taliyah said, clearly not giving it a second thought. Elvira instead wasn't very convinced. She murmured something under her breath and continued thinking about why such a stranger would give them a free inspection.

The two girls continued walking down the road. As they continued on, the sun was taking it's leave and they quickened the pace to get home earlier.

"Elvira?" Came a sudden question from Taliyah.

"Yes?"

"Did you hear about the legend of the great stoneweaver?"

Elvira started thinking and after a while answered: "Not really, sorry.."

"Oh, alright."

"But how does the legend go?"

"Ehm, well, I'm not too sure..." Taliyah replied and started making excuses in her mind.

Elvira raised an eyebrow. "I don't believe you"

"Well, you know, it's about an-"

A big, massive person, probably a man with his face covered, took a stone and let it crash on top of Elvira's head, instantly knocking her unconsious. Then Taliyah felt a hand on her mouth and started getting pulled into a dark sidealley. After dragging her there, Taliyah's kidnapper dropped her to the ground.

"One sound and you're dead." The kidnapper said and started walking to the second kidnapper.

"Did you kill her?" The first one, rather small, asked.

"No" was the sudden reply from the other guy. He had a very low and rusty voice.

"She's just sleeping."

"Hm. Alright. Help me drag this one to the rendevous."

The two started lifting her and started carrying her out of the alley, but Taliyah made heavy resistance. "Let me go!"

"Please make her shut up" the smaller one said.

"Alright."

Then the world went black for Taliyah as she felt something hard collide with her head.

* * *

When she woke back up, she found herself locked up in a prison cell. It was rather clean, with one hole in the wall (Taliyah refused to call it a window because it was so damn tiny). The 'window' was locked up with bars, so she searched for another way out. Of course, her door was locked. She started walking around and realized two things. First, Elvira wasn't there with her. She was probably locked up in another cell. Second, there was a small table with food and water.

Taliyah realized that she was pretty hungry, so she inspected the food and to feel rebellious, she took her meal to the bed and ate it there instead of on the table like she probably was supposed to.

After finishing her meal, Taliyah looked around. The wall was made out of stone, the door and the window out of metal, and everything else was out of wood. She looked around her cell for a while before she realized that the wall was made out of stone. Stone? Taliyah was a stoneweaver! She was quite insecure in those arts, but she was going to try to make a hole in the wall anyway.

Taliyah started concentrating. She could feel the stone and she could feel that the wall was pretty thick. So she decided to make a hole as small as possible, but still big enough for her to crawl through. Taliyah started thinking about the hole and after what felt like a lifetime, she could feel the stone changing. She opened her eyes and saw a little hole, fistsized. It didn't even go through the whole wall, and Taliyah was already sweating waterfalls. So she continued on.

After a few more lifetimes Taliyah finally managed to make a hole big enough for her to crawl through, and she only had to break the last thin layer of stone left. After concentrating for another lifetime again, the wall finally gave in. Taliyah sensed a proud feeling. She had managed to break a hole through this wall without even touching it!

Her euphoria was drastically reduced as Taliyah felt something tickling her legs. She opened her eyes and realized that the hole that she had managed to make didn't lead her out of her cell, but only to a lot of dirt.

"Who builds a prison cell underground?" Taliyah asked herself. "Makes no sense..."

"Well, it holds people off from breaking the wall, right?" Taliyah's attention snapped to the man behind her. How did he enter without her noticing?

"But technically, you didn't break it, did you? You just changed it's form. Very interesting. Come with me." The unknown man said. He was quite tall and young, with an amused expression on his face. When he reached the open door, he turned around and waited.

"What are you waiting for?"

"Nothing" Taliyah said, crossed the distance betwenn him and her and punched him in the face. The man took the blow without flinching and said, unamused: "Come on now." With that he took her hand and dragged Taliyah across the prison.

Trying to regain her dignity Taliyah stood up and asked: "Where are we going?"

"To the boss. He has a lot of uses for you." The two started walking again.

"Who is the boss?" Taliyah asked.

Silence.

"Who are you?" She tried.

"I'm Dan."

"Alright, Dan, who is your boss?"

"You'll see" With that, Taliyah gave up. Apparently noxians like to keep secrets. 'Maybe', Taliyah thought, 'it's not just Elvira, but every noxian who refuses to tell me anything'.

"We're here" Dan said.

They arrived in front of a huge door. When Dan opened it, Taliyah got greeted with darkness. They both entered and Dan closed the door behind them. As soon as their eyes adjusted to the darkness, laughter could be heard across the room and the lights suddently went on again, causing Dan and Taliyah to blink and adjust their eyes again.

"Greetings, Taliyah" the tall and strong man said. "Come closer." As soon as Dan came into view he nodded to the man and got the exact same reply.

"Who are you?" Taliyah asked.

"I am Darius."

"..." Taliyah had heard that name before, but couldn't really place it. She had probably heard it somewhere on her shopping tour with Elvira.

Darius was just about to say something when the door suddently got knocked down as two figures started running inside, the latter chasing the other. The guy in front had two axes spinning and desperatly tried to get away from the weird birds that obviously followed the commands they were given from the tall man following him.

The latter managed to catch up. He took the other guy close ans said: "If you ever even dare to think about..." He looked around and coughed, " **that** again, I will personally murder you!" And with that, he walked out of the room.

The smaller guy who hold his arm where he charged the door tried to regain his composure. He looked at the trio and asked: "My bro feeling like executing someone again? Great! I, Draven, will help and even start a show in the arena!"

"No, Draven, don't worry, it's not going to be an executioning..." Draven didn't even hear the last sentence because he immediately stormed out of the room. Dan started chuckling but immediately stopped as soon as Darius gave stared furiously at him.

"Alright, Taliyah, just let us forget what happened here, alright?"

"Okay"

"So, opposite to what my brother said, I do not plan on executing you. Dan told me of your talent and we want to..." He continued talking, but Taliyah unwillingly stopped listening because she started to think about two things. First, Darius' brother was this weird guy Draven? And second, when did Dan have time to tell Darius of her 'talent'?

After a while of speaking the Darius started looking at her, expecting an answer. What was the question? Taliyah just replied the simplest thing. "Yes."

"Perfect! So, Dan, please lead her to her quarters. And if you catch-" Darius got interrupted by a booming voice that came from afar.

"Welcome, Lads! Today, I, Draven, am going to execute somebody again! While we wait that the person gets dragged here, Draven is going to show you all his acuraccy with the axe!"

It was nonmistakenly Draven who had started a show in the arena. Darius let his head drop in his hands and Dan had to chuckle again.


End file.
